Here is how Sarah Opendi is right

The Tororo Woman MP, Sarah Opendi has once again ruffled feathers by pushing for automatic conversion of cohabitation into marriage.

Her argument: if you have been living with someone’s daughter or son as man and wife for six months but without taking legal steps to solemnize the relationship, a law should be in place to declare you husband and wife, with all the legal implications and benefits.

I have always found cohabiting an interesting development in any erotic arrangement; it is the one place where lovers enjoy all the benefits and growing pains of marriage, without being married.

The regular sex, companionship, parenting, co-investment, even ‘divorce’, without ever saying ‘I do’. And when someone suggests to ‘forcefully put a ring on things’, that is when you see people’s hair standing on end. Eh, isn’t that supposed to make it easier for you and this person you love so much that you could not wait for formalities to start staying together? (Chuckle, chuckle)

While Opendi’s six months suggestion is a ridiculously short period and in all honesty a mockery to the institution of marriage, I am all for legally calling cohabitation something else when months turn into years and years into decades.

That is a lot of time of serving each other hot sex, breaking and making up, raising a family and building a fortune together, only for you to eventually go your separate ways without consequences.

I have seen it happen. A ‘boyfriend’ of 20 years went and died suddenly, leaving his ‘girlfriend’, with whom he shared four underage children to the vultures called his family.

They took everything, including the family house she had helped to build (that it was sitting on clan land), all the merchandise in the Kikuubo shop they co-owned, and left her destitute and a ‘refugee’ in her own country.

So, what exactly is the problem with legalizing these arrangements before Hon. Opendi steps in and tells you, “You do. By force, by fire”?

After all, many of you already refer to yourselves as husband and wife in public and some long-serving girlfriends have even taken the bold, interesting step of calling themselves by their boyfriends’ surnames!

One such woman lost her boyfriend and it is then that we realized that she had simply taken his name without ever legalizing their relationship. We all knew her by his surname!

In fact, I still don’t know her maiden name. Shouldn’t such girlfriends be the ones at the forefront backing Opendi and her plans?

I had an eye-opening moment when I asked one cohabiting boyfriend why he was not walking the mother of his children down the aisle, already.

He answered: “My biggest scare is that as soon as I put a seal on this relationship, I will be strolling in town one day and bump into my true love; my soulmate, and then go, ‘oops! I already committed’!”

I had never heard anyone give that reason, but as I looked at him with eyes bulging, it occurred to me that he could be speaking for a silent, cohabiting majority.

Couples that are in a ‘roommate, friends-with-benefits’ kind of arrangement that also happens to come with a couple of children as they wait for their true loves.

In fact, one cohabiting girlfriend lovingly pressed her boyfriend’s kanzu (tunic) one Saturday morning, preparing him to join his friends for a kwanjula upcountry; only, he forgot to mention one small detail: he was the groom.

And you still think it is women you should fear?

caronakazibwe@gmail.com